I've also been experimenting with a new search engine. It's very rudimentary, but
may be useful.

Introduction

These notes are a miscellany of grammatical rules and explanations, comments on style, and suggestions on usage I put together for my classes.
Nothing here is carved in stone, and many comments are matters of
personal preference — feel free
to psychoanalyze me by examining my particular hangups and
bêtes noires. Anyone who can resist turning my own
preferences into dogma is welcome
to use this HTML edition. Feedback is
always welcome.

I should be clear up front: I'm not a linguist, nor a scholar
of the history of the language. (If you're curious about who I
am, you can look at my CV and
decide whether I'm worth listening to.) Linguists are wary of “prescriptive” grammars, which set
out standards of “correct” and “incorrect” usage — grammars
that usually insist correctness reigned in the good old days,
whereas we've been on the road to hell ever since. Professional
linguists are adamant that the language isn't “declining,” and
that many usages censured by self-styled grammarians are in fact
perfectly reasonable, whether on historical grounds, logical
grounds, or both.

And they're right. I reject any model of linguistic decline,
in which the twenty-first century speaks a decadent version of
the language of some golden age. I don't lie awake at night
worrying about the decline of “proper” English. (In my grumpier
moods, I'm convinced the whole world's going to hell — but
then, I'm convinced the whole world's been going to hell since
time out of mind. In my more sanguine moods, I wonder whether
hell isn't such a bad place to be after all.) I know, too, that
many things offered as “good” grammar or style have little basis
in history or in logic.

* * * * *

Why, then, have I spent so much time on a prescriptive and
fairly traditional usage guide? Because these notes may be useful
in making your writing clearer and more
effective. I'm not out to make definitive statements
about what's right and what's wrong, and Lord
knows I wouldn't be qualified even if I tried. I can, however,
make suggestions on things that are likely to work
— by which, as you'll see throughout this guide, I mean
have an effect on your audience.

The entries here are of two types: specific articles on usage, and more general articles on style. The specific articles cover such
mechanical things as when to use a
semicolon and what a dangling participle is; the general
articles discuss ways to make “proper” writing even better. The
specific articles can be further divided into two classes: (1) grammatical rules and matters of house style, matters rather of precedent
than of taste; and (2) more subjective suggestions for making
your writing clearer, more forceful,
and more graceful. The specific
articles are intended for quick reference, such as when you have
to find out whether which or
that is appropriate. The general articles lend
themselves to browsing and absorbing over time.

These general articles are no less important than the “rules.” In fact, really bad writing is
rarely a matter of broken rules — editors can clean these
up with a few pencil marks. It's more often the result of muddled
thought. Bad writers consider long
words more impressive than short ones, and use words like
usage instead of use
or methodologies
instead of methods without knowing what they mean. They
qualify everything with It has been noted after careful
consideration, and the facts get buried under loads of useless words. They pay no attention to
the literal sense of their words, and end up stringing stock
phrases together without regard for meaning. They use clichés inappropriately and say
the opposite of what they mean.

I've tried to steer clear of technical terms and, wherever
possible, have tried to explain grammatical jargon. This has
sometimes meant sacrificing precision for convenience; more
sophisticated writers and grammarians will doubtless see points
to quibble over, but I hope these notes get the idea across to
tyros. Every article on points of grammar — dangling participles, split infinitives — begins with a
practical definition of the term, followed by some useful rules,
and examples of good and bad writing. Sometimes there are
suggestions on how to identify possible problems. The definitions
and discussions are not exhaustive, just rules of thumb. If you
need more detail, consider one of the books in the last section,
“Additional Reading.”

There are countless writing guides, most of them awful. The
books below are either classics in the field or my own faves.

H. W. Fowler, Modern English Usage. This
seven-hundred-page volume of small type includes every
conceivable stylistic point, arranged alphabetically, and written
in an informal (but quirky) tone. Some of the entries are
specific — several pages on punctuation — while
others are general, such as tired clichés. Almost every
entry has illustrative quotations from real life. Fowler was
qualified for the job, having just compiled the Concise
Oxford Dictionary. Yanks may find this classic work
unsuitable because of its focus on British English, and much of it has
been outdated in the eight decades since its first edition's
completion. Still worth a look. A companion, Modern
American Usage by Follett, makes up for some of Fowler's
disadvantages, but lacks the charm of the original.

Sir Ernest Gowers et al., The Complete Plain
Words. Ernest Gowers's Plain Words is a guide
to effective writing from the 1940s for British civil servants.
Over the years it has gone through many editions and been changed
by many hands. The most recent version, The Complete Plain
Words, still shows its focus on British usage and the
civil service, but many of its suggestions are excellent. Most of
the book is a discussion of common writing problems, with
examples of good and bad writing. There is also a long section on
specific points of usage, arranged alphabetically.

George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language.” Orwell's
essay is one of the great works on the plain style. The essay
should be available in any popular collection of Orwell's essays.
Read it daily. Keep a copy under your pillow.

Thomas Pinney, A Short Handbook
and Style Sheet. A handy little guide to style, written
informally and accessibly. The general sections (on diction,
vagueness, wordiness, and so on) are better than those devoted to
mechanics. Pinney's work is
refreshingly free of dogmatism of any sort.

Margaret Shertzer, The Elements of Grammar. Not
bad if you're looking for very specific rules, but not highly
recommended as a general guide. It includes things like
“Capitalize nouns followed by a capitalized Roman numeral” and
the proper spelling of bête noire. Easily
available, since it's often sold with Strunk and White (below).

Strunk and White, The Elements of
Style. The standard high school guide to style, and useful
well beyond school. It includes a number of specific rules,
dozens of commonly misused words, and bundles of suggestions for
improving your style. Available anywhere (now including an on-line version of
Strunk's 1918 edition). Read it. Memorize it. Live it.

Maxwell Nurnberg, I Always Look
Up the Word “Egregious”: A Vocabulary Book for People Who Don't
Need One. A pleasant guide to building vocabulary that
never becomes patronizing (the fault of too many books for
beginners) or drifts off into utterly useless long words (the
fault of too many books for fans of word games). It's probably
too sophisticated for non-native speakers and rank beginners, but
will help many others build a more powerful vocabulary.

The American Heritage Dictionary, 4th ed. Not
only a good desk dictionary for providing definitions, but also a
handy guide to usage on controversial questions. AHD
has a panel of writers who vote on whether certain usages are
acceptable.

Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero
Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. It's not a
comprehensive treatise to answer all your questions, and it
describes British rather than American practice (well, practise).
And the “zero-tolerance” stuff shouldn't be taken too seriously.
But the book's a hoot, and if you're curious about the finer
points of punctuation, check it out.

Mirror sites of this page are available around the world. Most
of them are unauthorized (only a few were considerate enough to
ask for my permission before reproducing my work), and most of
them represent versions long out of date. I assume responsibility
only for this version, at http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/.
But if you have trouble connecting to this site, feel free to try
the others, for what they're worth.